


Despair and The Truth

by kenita_archive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Goodbyes, Heartbreak, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenita_archive/pseuds/kenita_archive
Summary: Dean lost his best friend in the world who had just confessed a decade worth of love. Whatever in the hell does he do now?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Despair and The Truth

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the setting of Supernatural 15x18 "Despair," after Cas confessed his undying love for Dean and got taken away by the empty. I wrote this in one sitting, so please try to overlook any grammatical errors and such.

Dean collapsed on the floor in a sobbing heap.

Sam barges into the bunker with Jack, thinking he had lost his brother along with everybody else on the planet, literally. The twenty-something phone calls he had sent Dean's way did him no favors. Life as he knows it was punishment enough; losing his brother on top of that was not a thought Sam was willing to entertain. 

"DEAN!?" Sam yells, running down the stairs. He tells Jack to check in Dean's room and then heads to search the rest of the bunker himself, screaming Dean's name to the top of his lungs the whole time. 

As Sam continues to scour the bunker for his brother, he notices a single thin line of scratch—a gift from Billy's scythe—across one side of the hall that leads to the dungeon and cautiously follows it.  _ I've seen this movie before _ , he thinks and is not exactly thrilled to see what's on the other end. Dear magic knife of Ruby was on standby just in case. After what seemed like a lifetime to walk down the quiet hall, Sam finds his brother on the dungeon floor. He lets out a sigh of relief mixed with a little bit of anger.

"DEAN?!" Sam screams, marching around furiously. "Dean, what the hell, man!? I've been calling you! Couldn't you answer your damn phone??"

Dean says nothing, keeps looking at the floor.

Sam notices that his brother is just out of it. He immediately takes a look around, expecting to find Cas nearby. Jack is still rushing around in the bunker, screaming Dean and Cas's names, but Sam is too busy trying to process everything else to do anything about it.

Slowly putting away Ruby's knife, Sam asks, "Uhh, Dean? Where's Cas?"

No answer.

"Damnit, Dean, where the hell is Cas?" He takes one more glance at Dean and asks, "What happened?"

Dean finally looks up to reveal his swollen red eyes.

Sam could swear he has seen a version of this face before. He doesn't need to ask any further questions to know that something has happened to Cas; something terrible. It was written all over Dean's face, kind of like it was when the brothers watched Lucifer stab Cas to death a few years back. But somehow, this was even worse: Dean's entire body looked like it had given out. He is limp from bottom to top. His eyes had retired after dehydrating him altogether.

"Dean, what the hell happened?" asked Sam, softly this time. "Did he v-" he paused to hide the terror in his voice, thinking about Eileen, ". . .did he vanish too? Everyone out there has disappeared into thin air. The plan failed. We used every warding sigil in the book, heightened the power, but it didn't work for some reason. Not just the people from the apocalypse world; Donna, and everyone outside too. It's like they all just got erased from existence."

Dean took a tired glance at his brother. He didn't have the strength to formulate words and put his brother out of his misery, so he just gave him another look. A glance that seemed to answer Sam with a clear "No, Sam, Cas didn't vanish."

"Then. . .what happened?"

Dean figured he would have to make words and fire them out his mouth sometime soon, so he might as well do it now. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. His eyes betrayed him once again, and tears started falling down his cheeks. He was well aware that all this does is give Sam more reasons to freak out, but he just couldn't help it. He wiped his tears off and opened his mouth to try again.

"He, Uhm," Dean cleared his throat and continued, "He uh, he's gone." Tears started falling once more, and Dean gave up on fighting them. "He's gone, Sammy. Cas's gone." He finished, voice breaking with every syllable.

"What do you-" Sam takes a second to try and process what he heard and fails. "What does that mean?" He has never seen his brother in this much pain, which says a lot coming from a Winchester. "What do you mean he's gone?"

"He just," more tears, "he told me he loved me, and he's gone." The words came out as though he had no idea what was going on and needed Sam to help him understand. Everything had happened so fast. Any ounce of strength Dean Winchester ever had left him like a shady ex. His heart hurts even more than it did when Billy had him under that spell—if that was even possible.

Sam is at a loss for words. His girl had vanished, his big brother was in pieces, and the world had literally gone empty. He wants to comfort Dean, assure him somehow that things were going to be OK, and Cas was going to come back. He wanted to give Dean the usual, "we will figure it out, we always do" pep talk, only even that sounded ridiculous to him. So instead, he just asked, "He loved you?"

It's not that Sam was surprised; he had known the two of them had fallen helplessly for each other, one of them literally. OK, maybe he was surprised a bit, but not about Cas loving him. He's surprised one of them finally admitted, and they finally got it out.

"He said I changed him and that I was his true happiness. He told me he loved me," said Dean, fighting with himself after each word not to break into any more pieces, "and the next thing I know, the empty is here. It took Billy and" more tears, "and it took Cas. It took 'em both." His head felt like it was floating away from his body at this point.

Sam had sunk into the ground slowly. All that he could do, all he knew how to do, was give his brother a shoulder to fall apart on. But knowing Dean's stubbornness won't let him, he keeps his distance and starts to feel the loss for himself.

The brothers notice they have company and turn to see Jack terrified, guilty, and angry all at once. His face is almost unrecognizable from the redness of his wet cheeks and puffy swollen eyes. He turns around and storms off to his room, despising himself for letting his dad take on that deal for him in the first place.

******************Later that day********************

The brothers and Jack had decided to pause everything—their anger and grief—until Chuck has been dealt with, somehow. They figured they would start by looking for an anti-evil God weapon in the lore and gathering every heavy-duty spell instruction and ingredient they can find.

They spent hours going through books with covers that simply should not exist. After gathering everything they thought would help them save any living soul they might find outside, it was time to head out and face Chuck for themselves.

"Alright, meet you guys at the car in ten," said Sam, giving the boys what he hoped was a reassuring glance.

Jack dragged himself to his room against the will of his body. He took out a duffel bag and started throwing things in it, feeling as though he could fix everything by shoving stuff in his duffel as hard as Nephilmly possible.

Dean swings his bedroom door open without a shred of remorse for the hinges and starts bullying weapons into his duffel. He throws in a few other things and pauses when he sees his green shirt from this morning on his bed. He stops at once for a minute, pushes a tear back, and heads to the edge of the bed. He hesitates before picking up the shirt and practically flinching, then slowly folds it so that the bloody handprint was on top. He walks across his room to his mirror, running a gentle hand over the handprint. It only takes him a whole thirty seconds before half-glancing into the mirror and wincing at his reflection. An image of the last time his shoulder possessed a handprint, one that belonged to the same man, and a confused Dean in the mirror, rushes through his mind. He loses his fight against teardrops but wipes them off before they could take him apart again.

Walking back to the other side of his bed, Dean ran a hand over the shirt once more, memories of his angel from the past eleven years washing over him. Cas scaring off a hooker. Cas with a beard in Purgatory. Cas as Steve in the gas station. Cas in a cowboy hat. He barely manages to pull back a sob. Then, Dean Winchester, CEO of burying emotions down with whiskey and women to the grave, put down his shirt at the bottom of his duffel, after whispering a weak "I love you too, Cas" to it.

Dean's angel, the love of his life, his best friend in all the infinite universes Chuck had just destroyed, was gone, and all he had was a part of him printed on Dean's shirt as a souvenir. One that Dean would take with him everywhere he goes. One that will always be with him, therefore allowing Cas to always be with him. A souvenir Dean would never let out of his sight until the end of times, a Winchester's end of times. A green shirt marked with the blood and hand of a fallen angel Dean had so helplessly fallen in love with.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic, and I have second and third, and one billion guessed myself with it, so please do not be too harsh on me.


End file.
